The Burning Season

by Jeff Mariotte

  They reached Catherine’s office and went inside. She took her usual chair behind the desk. Vartann folded his arms over his chest, leaning against a filing cabinet. “A couple of their top dogs are in town tonight,” he said. “Giving a seminar, of all things. They call it an informational session on the coming economic crash—”

  “I thought we already had that.”

  “I guess they mean the one that’ll happen when the merits come in. Anyway, the guys leading the seminar are Steven and Troy Kirkland. Father and son. Steven’s the dad, and the grand old man of the Free Citizens movement. They travel around the country, seeking out recruits for the cause.”

  “And staying one step ahead of the IRS, I’m sure.” Jim Brass slouched in the doorway, though Catherine hadn’t heard him approach. For a big man, he could move as silently as a summer breeze.

  “I should go,” Catherine said. “See if they can call off this John of Tipton fellow.”

  “No way,” Vartann said.

  “He’s right,” Brass added. “You’re already a target. The last thing you should be doing is stirring up that particular hornet’s nest. I can go, poke around, see if I can find anything out.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Vartann said. “You need to stay away from those people, Cath. At least until the crosshairs are off you.”

  She understood their point. They were right. She had already become personally involved in this case in a way she shouldn’t have. Going to that seminar, confronting the group’s leaders, would just be digging herself in deeper.

  At the same time, she had been a grown-up for a long time. She didn’t like relying on anyone to look out for her interests, and the fact that those people had drawn her into their drama—and threatened the home she and her daughter lived in—infuriated her. Confrontation might be a bad idea, professionally. But it would feel so good.

  “All right,” she said with reluctance. “I’ll stay away from them. For now. But if you get a line on this Tipton joker—”

  “We’ll let you know, Cath,” Vartann promised.

  “Good.”

  “I found out another interesting tidbit,” Vartann said. “You should stick around for this, Jim.”

  “I got a few minutes.”

  “Apparently the Free Citizens and BOOM have a history. And not a happy one. They’ve been feuding for years. Both groups came up during the 1990s, originally. The Free Citizens have always been fringier, a little farther out of the mainstream. And although they share some common goals, their approaches have made them practically mortal enemies, with the Free Citizens accusing BOOM of selling out to big business and politics as usual, and BOOM calling the Free Citizens dangerous nutbags. The rivalry has been physical, at times, with group members assaulting each other, planting pipe bombs in mailboxes, that sort of thing. The Free Citizens are suspected in a couple of larger bombing plots, as well, though there’s never been enough evidence to bring charges on those. There have been some arrests on both sides, but no one’s been able to connect those incidents to the group leaders.”

  “That is interesting,” Brass said. “So when Watson told us that the Free Citizens are stockpiling weapons . . .”

  “That’s definitely true. But it calls into question his motive for telling you. Was he just being an upright citizen—?

  Catherine finished for him. “Or was he trying to sic us on his rivals?”

  “Exactly,” Vartann said. “Either way, I’m working on getting a warrant. Considering what’s been going on, it would be good to know if the Free Citizens armory includes ammonium nitrate.”

  12

  SEAN VOET LOOKED like an unlikely rebel.

  When Brass rang the doorbell of his ground floor apartment in a brick apartment building, painted aqua and named Tradewinds Apts., the man who answered the door did so on one leg. He supported himself on wooden crutches festooned with colorful stickers and phrases written in marker. His left leg, Brass noted, was leaning against a threadbare couch in the living room behind him. The prosthetic went up to mid-thigh.

  Voet’s arms and shoulders looked to be in pretty good shape, though his left forearm was more scar tissue than skin. His desert camo fatigue shirt hung open, displaying a distinct paunch and a latticework of scars climbing his chest. His hair was straight, brushing his collar in the back, more gray than brown. He looked at Brass through thick-lensed, metal-framed glasses and wiped a lock of hair off his forehead. “Yeah?”

  “Are you Sean Voet?”

  “Yeah.”

  Brass showed badge and ID. “I’m Captain Brass, LVPD.”

  “You outrank me,” Voet said. “I never made it past specialist.” He tapped his left thigh. “The war ended for me before I had much of a chance to move up.”

  “Which one?” Brass asked. “Vietnam for me.”

  “Desert Storm.” Voet replied. “Third Squadron, Second Armored Cav. At 74 Easting, our Bradley took fire from the Republican Guard—bastards were eager to surrender in some places, but not there. They crippled us, then opened up on us with the seventy-three millimeter gun of a Russian-made BMP-1. Scored a direct hit. Two guys were KIA, and I was—well, you can see. Guys were scraping me up to put me in a body bag when I surprised them by not being dead.”

  “Sorry,” Brass said. He truly was. Soldiers who went to war knew the risks going in—it was what they had signed up for. But he always preferred them to come home in one piece, and upright. Too often, it didn’t happen that way.

  “Is what it is,” Voet said. He made his way back over to the couch, sat down beside the leg. “Damn thing itches sometimes, especially if I’ve been on it all day.”

  “While demonstrating outside a cable news office, for example.”

  “That’s right.” Voet glared at him, chin angled up. Defiant. “Something on your mind, Cap?”

  “I respect your service, Mr. Voet. And I would defend your right to protest until my dying day. But these e-mails you sent to Dennis Daniels . . .” He drew some printouts from an inner jacket pocket, scanned down the first page. “This is choice. ‘Your head should be on a pole to warn the other lapdogs of industry not to screw with the American people.’ Or how about this one? ‘When we’re done with you there won’t be enough left to fill an airplane barf bag.’ Come on, Sean, you really think that’s an appropriate thing to say to anybody?”

  “It is if that’s the way I feel.”

  “You really want to kill Daniels?”

  Voet shook his head, clearing that wayward lock from his eyes. “Okay, it’s hyperbole, for the most part. I’m trying to make a point, all right? Guys like this, they pretend to be on the side of the people. But when push comes to shove, they’re carrying water for Wall Street, for the coal companies and the oil companies and the big defense companies, just like the rest of them.”

  “It’s a free country. Nobody’s making you watch DCN or any other channel.”

  “No. But they can use their power to influence elections, and that does affect all of us.”

  “You got an answer for everything, don’t you?”

  “Dude, I gave my leg for this country. I spent nine months at Walter Reed after I was finally stateside. Long enough for a woman to have a baby, right? Only in my case, it was me who was being born. Reborn. I had been headed for a middle-American, middle-class life. I had a wife and a dog waiting for me in Columbus, Ohio. But while I was at Walter Reed, my wife sold the dog and divorced me and moved to Rhode Island with a truck driver.”

  “That stinks,” Brass said.

  “Tell me about it. Anyway, while I was there, I realized a few things. Walter Reed was a dump then. Nobody took care of you guys when you came back from Nam, and no one was looking out for us, either. This country had decided that wars shouldn’t happen, so even when they do, most people try to pretend they’re not real. If they accidentally see anything on the evening news, they imagine it’s a movie, and Brad Pitt or Ben Affleck is the grunt on the screen taking fire. We don’t ask the country to
make any sacrifices, or even to acknowledge the effort. We run our wars off the books, passing on the cost to future generations instead of paying for them with new taxes or spending cuts.”

  “I’m with you so far,” Brass said. He needn’t have bothered; Voet was wound up and would have continued without the prompt.

  “So I came to the conclusion that we just shouldn’t have any more wars. I mean, if we’re not going to take them seriously. Why not just disband the armed forces, pull everybody out of Iraq and Afghanistan? We can beef up the Coast Guard and the Border Patrol, in case anybody tries to attack us. But as for playing policeman to the world? There’s no stomach for it anymore. We’re better off not funding a military than sending people out to die for a country that won’t even acknowledge the sacrifice.”

  “So that’s your beef with Daniels?”

  “I moved to Vegas after I got out of Walter Reed. Figured what better place to start life over? There was nothing left for me in Columbus. So here I am, and there’s Daniels, just another cog in the machine, pushing for programs that dump more taxpayer money into the military-industrial system that chews up people like me and spits us out. As long as he backs bills that raise taxes instead of slashing the military budget, I will keep protesting him.”

  “And threatening his life,” Brass reminded him. “Because he’s in town, and it’s convenient for you.”

  “Like I said, the threats are hyperbole. I’m trying to make a point, to get his attention.”

  “So when you said you’d bury him up to his eyeballs in the desert and let the rattlesnakes and scorpions get him—”

  “I mean, how can you take that seriously? Especially now that you’ve met me? I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to dig a hole with just one leg, but let me tell you, it ain’t easy.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “What else did I say in those? Something about tying him to my rear axle by his ankles and driving to Guatemala, right?”

  “I think that was in there.”

  “Come on, man.”

  “Some of your threats are pretty far out there, Sean, I’ll give you that. But there are others. ‘I’ll kill you.’ ‘I’ll rip your lungs out.’ ‘I’ll cut you into pieces and drop them in a shark tank.’ Those are more believable, and more sinister. You sure had Mrs. Daniels concerned.”

  “I’m not a genuinely violent man, Cap. I used to be, but after Desert Storm I gave that shit up. Now I talk a good game, but that’s it. I’m just trying to scare the dude.”

  Brass had not been invited to sit, but he parked himself on the arm of a big, overstuffed chair. “Where were you last night? Midnight to one, say?”

  Voet barked a short laugh. “Here. What, you think maybe I was out dancing?”

  “Dancing would be better than here, unless you’ve got a witness.”

  “Just me and the tube. I don’t sleep much these days, Cap. Lots of late movies. Last night I spent time with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich.”

  “Kismet?” Brass asked.

  “No, I looked in the program guide.” Voet laughed again. He sounded like a strangled seal. “See, kismet means fate or destiny, and—”

  “I know what it means.”

  “Yeah, I was watching Kismet. Fell asleep during it, in fact.”

  Brass nodded. “I’ve seen it, so I’m not surprised. It’s better than the Howard Keel remake, though. Still, Sean, that’s a pretty weak alibi.”

  “It’s what I got.”

  Voet had not been the only person who had threatened Daniels, not by a long shot. He had been one of the most persistent, however, and he had been local. And he’d been photographed at the demonstrations on multiple occasions. Those factors were the ones that had set off Joanna Daniels’s radar, and Brass’s as well. The next most frequent threat-maker lived in Kentucky, and had been making similar threats toward people in industry and politics since 1979. Brass had a couple of other Las Vegas residents to check out—and of course, it was possible that the bomber had traveled to the city to pull off his attack, or was one of the quiet ones who didn’t broadcast his intentions. Those sorts would have to be dealt with through a wider-ranging investigation, and increased security around Daniels.

  Brass considered himself a pretty fair judge of people. The impression he got from Voet was that the man was telling the truth. He was opinionated, maybe obnoxiously so. He sent messages without thinking them through. But he was most likely harmless. At any rate, although his alibi was weak, failing the discovery of some evidence placing him at one or more of the crime scenes, it was good enough.

  “Okay, Sean,” Brass said. “Do me a favor, will you?”

  “What’s that, Cap?”

  “Stop threatening people. If you have a cause, then work for it all you want, but don’t threaten the lives of people you disagree with.”

  “I’ll try, Cap. I honestly will.”

  “One more thing, Sean?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Stop calling me Cap.”

  13

  NICK AND SARA followed Harley Givens back up the hill. As he climbed, Givens clutched his shotgun like it was a lifeline and he a drowning man. He threw glances their way from time to time, as if making sure they weren’t gaining on him. Nick understood that Givens was within his rights to carry the weapon, but he was still a little sensitive about shotguns, having recently been leveled by one. Only his Kevlar vest had saved his life, that time. He was wearing it again, even though it was a bit bulky for backwoods hiking.

  As they neared the top, they heard voices and vehicles—engines cutting out, doors slamming. Sara caught Nick’s eyes. “Maybe the evacuation’s over?”

  “Could be.”

  Givens must have heard the exchange, because he shot them an angry look. His face was flushed, from the climb, his anger, or both. “I told you nobody stopped me!”

  “We were supposed to be told, Mr. Givens,” Nick said. “Apparently that didn’t happen.”

  “I think we’re the low heads on the communication totem pole out here,” Sara said quietly. “The rangers and Forest Service firefighters are used to talking to each other. They have to talk to Castillo. But they haven’t figured out how to bring us into the loop yet.”

  “I hope they figure it out soon. This wasn’t a big deal, but if there’s something serious—like they lose control of the fire again—I’d sure like to know about it.”

  “Best thing we can do is try to stay on their screens. Make sure we check in once in a while, make sure they see us around.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Nick smiled at her. “It’s kind of like old times, isn’t it? You and me out here.”

  “Kind of,” Sara agreed.

  Most of the men at the lab had had crushes on Sara at one time or another. Greg’s had been a serious one. Nick had appreciated her smarts, her wry sense of humor—so subtle sometimes that hours could pass before anyone figured out she had told a joke—and her physical beauty, but he had never longed for her the way some others had. They had been friends, as close as siblings, and that was how they’d liked it.

  Grissom, of course, was the one she fell for. She had left town, and then he had as well, chasing her into the jungles of Costa Rica before they finally reached the understanding that everyone else at the lab had already decided was the only sensible one.

  There had been times Nick had missed having her around, and the fact that she was back, working beside him, was a source of joy. He had resolved not to take her for granted, and the same went for the rest of the team. Coming close to death sharpened one’s intellect in that way—made a person understand that time with anyone precious was always too short. Nick hadn’t always been careful enough about that, but he was determined to try.

  Givens reached the crest of the slope before them and disappeared. By the time Nick and Sara made it up, the sounds of conversation from the street were continuous. When they cleared the rise, they found out why.

  There had been fourteen houses on th
is stretch of road leading up to it. With the evacuation order lifted, most of the families occupying them had returned. Every house had suffered at least some damage when the fire roared through. Seven were completely totaled, nothing left but charred timbers, stone chimneys, and ash. Most of the residents hadn’t gone inside their homes yet, or if they had they’d come right back out again. They stood in the street, talking to neighbors and friends, as if to weigh the damage individually would be too hard to bear.

  Close to the path they had taken up the hill, a young man—a boy, really, not out of his teens—stood at the cliff’s edge, looking down into the burned forest. While Nick watched, he shook a cigarette out of a pack and shoved it between his lips, then drew a disposable lighter from his pocket and thumbed fire from it. The sudden lick of flame struck Nick with the force of a curse word shouted in church—to be lighting a fire, here and now, with those people who had lost everything so close by, seemed inappropriate at best.

  “Let’s have a talk with this kid,” he said.

  “Okay.” Sara walked toward him. The kid saw her coming and turned away from her. “Hey,” she said. Nick picked up his pace, in case the kid tried to run.

  He didn’t. He stayed where he was, eyeing the forest and ignoring the CSIs. “Excuse me,” Sara said.

  He finally deigned to acknowledge her, letting a billow of smoke issue from his nose and mouth. “‘S’up?”

  “I’m Sara Sidle from the Las Vegas Crime Lab,” Sara said. “That’s Nick Stokes.”

  “Long way from home.”

  “We’re here on special assignment.”

  “Congratulations.” The kid sucked in more smoke, leaked it out through his nose. He was heavyset and he stood with his feet well apart, as if bracing for a cannonball to be fired at him. Nick thought he just might be able to keep his balance. His hair was long and dark blond, and he had an unruly wisp of beard and whiskers that reminded Nick of photographs he had seen of Civil War officers. He seemed to be squinting against his own smoke, but Nick got the impression that it was his usual expression, a sort of bored superiority.